Anonymous Access and Challenge/Response Authentication

Some of the information made available through Terra Flora's World Wide Web (WWW) service pilot project needs to be accessible to all employees, so Maria keeps the default selection—Allow Anonymous. Because anonymous access is configured by default, it requires no additional configuration. Maria uses the default home directory (Wwwroot) for content available by anonymous access.

Maria also makes available content that needs to be accessible only to team members. Because all team members are running Windows NT Workstation version 4.0, they have on their desktops Internet Explorer version 2.0, which uses the Windows NT challenge/response password method. Maria uses this authentication method to limit access to team information. Basic authentication is available, but is used only when authenticated clients do not support challenge/response.

For more information about Basic and challenge/response authentication, see Chapter 3, "Server Security on the Internet."

First, Maria creates a virtual directory (/Team) on a Windows NT File System (NTFS) drive for the team information, as shown in Figure 4.3.

Figure 4.3 Adding a virtual directory in Peer Web Services

Next, Maria sets the properties for that directory to allow access by team members only. She removes the group Everyone. She adds access for the team members by giving the local group ISTeam full control over the directories, as shown in Figure 4.4.

Figure 4.4 Setting directory permissions

Now, only members of ISTeam are granted access to the Project Plan directory (shared in Peer Web Services as /Team). All existing Windows NT security and groups can be integrated and used with Peer Web Services and Internet Information Server.